12. What Is In Your Heart
12
WHAT IS IN YOUR HEART
“ I know I told you I could handle things and I didn’t want you in the middle,” Tori said the next morning when Raina answered her phone. “But I need a favor.”
“Anything,” Raina said. “You want to know when Hyde is here, don’t you?”
She let out a sigh. “Yes. He’s not replying to me and I’m not sure what that means. I don’t want to assume anything else like I did and made a mess of everything.”
“You did do that and it’s not like you, but as you said, everything with Hyde isn’t what you’re used to.”
“No,” she said. “It’s not. I have to figure that out. I can understand if he just wants to say we won’t work. Maybe we won’t and it’s for the best, but I can’t leave things the way they are.”
“Of course you can’t,” Raina said.
“Have you heard anything about Hyde’s sister? Is she okay?”
“What I heard came from Ryder. He talked to Hyde last night. I guess they expect CeeCee to make a great recovery and she’ll need physical therapy. They want Cody, so Ryder called last night to talk to him.”
“That’s good to hear,” she said, letting out a big breath. “I’m glad.”
“I’ll send you a text when he’s here, but I’m not positive if he’s coming in. I didn’t ask.”
“That’s fine,” she said. “On one hand I want to get it over with, and on the other, maybe I could stand to use a bit of time to figure out what I’m going to say.”
“Go with what is in your heart,” Raina said.
“It’s about all I can do,” she said.
She hung up and got to work. She had a busy day planned but would drop anything and everything to speak to Hyde if she could.
She wasn’t sure the last time she felt ashamed of her behavior.
It felt like the roles were reversed now. Maybe she could use that as a conversation starter?
At two her phone went off with a text. She picked it up to see a message from Raina that Hyde was in his office now and his calendar looked clear until the end of the day.
She got up and left her office. “I’ll be back in about twenty minutes,” she told Justine at the front desk.
Tori didn’t have to tell anyone where she was going but always did in case someone was looking for her or she got a call.
She ran up the two flights of stairs, then stopped at the door to Fierce Engineering.
“Hi, Tori. You can go back,” Maureen said. They knew her and never questioned anything. Maureen probably thought she was here to see Raina and she wasn’t going to correct her.
She could pop her head in to see Raina but didn’t want to delay what she needed to do.
When she got outside of Hyde’s office she noticed he was clean-shaven.
Holy cow.
How was it possible he could look any more gorgeous?
Talk about a dangerous superpower to have when she had no armor to shield herself.
He looked up quickly as if he just noticed someone might be watching him.
“Do you have a minute?” she asked.
He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. His expression didn’t change. He didn’t look mad though, so that was something.
“Sure,” he said. “Come in.”
“I want to apologize. I should have never sent that text and didn’t know what happened.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t think to reach out, but the truth is I wasn’t thinking of anything but my family.”
“I know that now. I was worried at first. Then annoyed. The embarrassment of being stood up got to me. I went home and ate ice cream out of the carton.” She waved her hand. She didn’t need to tell him all of this. “It’s not the point. I got into my head and let parts of what you told me feed this ugly emotion in me. That was completely wrong of me.”
“So you said that because you think those things or because I planted a seed that you didn’t know was there?”
She wasn’t sure why he asked that. “The second. I might have assumed those things based on your relationship with Ryder and your looks alone.” He smirked at her. She still didn’t know what was going through his mind. “But when you told me about your past everything flooded my brain and I was like, yep, there is another poor dating choice I’ve made.”
“You didn’t tell me you had a poor dating history,” he said.
“I figured we touched on enough other things. And I’m sorry. I had no right to say what I had. Especially after everything you told me about your past and changing. It was wrong of me. My hurt feelings and embarrassment are my own.”
“They are,” he said. “I have to ask myself if I want to go down the path again with someone who doesn’t believe me when I say I’m not that person. It was a lot of work on my end and the results were the same. Nothing I said or did mattered.”
She nodded her head. “You do,” she said. “And I won’t hold it against you if you decide that it’s too much.”
Especially since she was guilty of thinking it was odd he’d worked so hard with Shana.
“You’ll just move on like nothing ever happened?” he asked.
“We had one date and a lot of volatile interactions. Maybe it’s for the best. I don’t know. I don’t seem to know anything more than you bring the worst out of me.”
He looked sad when she said that and it wasn’t what she wanted. “I might feel the same way,” he said.
“Which leaves us wondering why we should bother. You should bring the best out of people, not the worst. I just couldn’t leave things the way they were, Hyde. It wouldn’t feel right. I hope we can just be friends.”
“Friends,” he said, laughing. Not a funny sound either. “Why not? Can’t have enough of them, huh?”
“No,” she said. “Have a good day.” She turned to leave and all but ran into Grant Fierce.
“Sorry about that,” Grant said. “Didn’t see you coming out of Hyde’s office. Did you get lost? Raina is a few down.”
“No,” she said. “I was in the right office.”
She moved past Grant and tried not to run to her office while she battled back the tears and hoped to figure out why she was so upset that they were just going to leave it as friends.
“How is CeeCee doing?” Grant asked Hyde. He’d been on his way to check in on him and was slightly stunned to hear the conversation between Ryder’s best friend and Raina’s best friend.
What had he missed and why hadn’t anyone told him what was going on?
“She’s doing well,” Hyde said. “She was up and walking this morning. Not happy and in some pain, but that is to be expected.”
“That’s great news,” Grant said. “Ryder filled us in last night. He failed to mention something with you and Tori though. When did this start?”
“Nothing to say,” Hyde said. “We had one date. We don’t seem to be too compatible. Just ending it on friendly terms.”
Not from what he’d heard but no way he was going to argue about that.
Hyde had enough going on in his life right now.
He’d get to the bottom of it, but it’d have to be another day.
“Sometimes that happens,” he said. “I’m glad to hear about CeeCee though.”
“It was a long couple of days, but things should get better.”
“Any time you need to take to help with her recovery or bring her to appointments, you know you don’t need to ask.”
“Thanks,” he said. “I’ll work something out with my parents, but I’m sure they will have it covered too.”
“I’ll let you get back to work,” Grant said.
He needed to move, see his son and find out what was going on.
He wanted to run to Ryder’s office, but that would look too obvious.
“You look out of breath,” Ryder said to him. “Don’t give yourself a heart attack. What’s wrong?”
He shut his son’s door. “Why didn’t you tell me Hyde and Tori are dating?”
“I’m not aware that it was anything more than one date,” Ryder said. “That isn’t dating in my book. I guess it went fine, but no clue. Why are you asking me and how did you find out?”
“I just heard Tori apologizing to Hyde in his office.” He debated sharing the rest and figured it wouldn’t hurt his cause. “She commented he brought the worst out of her and she did the same to him. That they’d be better off friends.”
“Not surprised,” Ryder said.
“Why?” he asked. “What do you know?”
His son laughed at him. “Nothing I’m going to share with you. Let’s just say that I’m going to repeat myself. Leave Hyde alone. He’s getting to a good point in his life and doesn’t need anyone interfering. It’s probably for the best with him and Tori. They are both smart people to make that decision, so it’s over by the sounds of it.”
“Heard loud and clear,” he said.
Ryder snorted. “You always hear, but you don’t do so well following directions.”
“Now you know what you put your mother and me through for years,” he said before he hurried to his brother’s office.
“What’s the rush?” Garrett asked him.
He shut the door. “We’ve got someone to work on,” he said.
“For what?” Garrett asked.
“You know,” he said. “Our little side hustle.”
He never liked to say they were matchmakers. That sounded silly to him. Their wives could brag about it, but he’d rather say they helped people move along. Yeah, that sounded better.
“Who?” Garrett asked.
“Hyde.”
“I thought we were staying away from him,” Garrett said.
“I was trying to, but I just overheard Tori in his office.”
“Tori?” Garrett asked.
“Raina’s best friend. Geez, Garrett, you’re slow today.”
“I’m just trying to keep up,” Garrett said.
“Then listen,” he said and told his twin what he’d overheard.
“How dare Ryder not tell us what was going on?” Garrett said.
“I know. I brought that up to him, but he’s staying pretty tight-lipped and loyal. I can’t fault him there. Something more has to be going on. When I think of the two of them, I can see them together. Tori isn’t someone that ever gets upset or angry. Hyde is always a good time to be around. I’m not sure what is going on.”
“And we might not find out,” Garrett said. “Maybe it just didn’t work out and you’re overthinking it.”
“Ryder and Raina have to know,” he said. He’d never get it out of Raina but might be able to squeeze something out of his son.
“Considering what Hyde is going through now, let’s give him some space and try to figure this out. We’ve got something to work with, but we can’t do much without knowing more. And as I said, it might just be over and for the best to let it slide.”
“You’re right,” Grant said. Even if he didn’t believe that. “But you know, where there are sparks there could be an easily lit fire.”
“I guess it’s only going to depend on if one of them is going to burn the place down or not,” Garrett said, laughing. “That isn’t good for either of them.”
“We’ve gotten good at controlling the water around everyone. We’ll be fine.”
“If you say so,” Garrett said.
“I do,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “Now we’ve got to formulate a plan and be ready for our next move.”